P.E.I. man turns board game passion into full-time YouTube career | SaltWire

when Rodney Smith started creating YouTube tutorials for board games he did not know where it would take him now after 12 years the monu resident has turned it into a full-time career his Channel watch it played has amassed more than 350,000 subscribers and more than 76 million views Smith says it might seem frivolous to think of creating YouTube videos as his life's work but it is through playing board games and making videos about it that has helped him form some of the most meaningful relations in his life and he's proud of how his channel has been helping viewers make those similar connections for more than a decade if in some way some of what I'm doing is helping people have that next grade experience with their friends then it that turns it from feeling kind of fress to something that maybe is actually perhaps important on some level CU we all need a little little Joy a little fun in the world and board games is a way that some people find that over the years Smith has turned his YouTube work into a financially viable and sustainable gig while views and viewer donations at his income most of it actually comes from board game Publishers hiring him to teach their games often newly released ones it all started in 2011 a few years after his family moved to the island being a longtime fan of board games he w wanted to create tutorial videos on YouTube back in the early 2010s there were a few channels dedicated to teaching Bard games so it's a rather niche market as he made more videos more people became interested in his channel and so he started to seriously considered turning it into a full-time career but Smith says he could not have done all of this without his wife support at the beginning to be honest I have to give my wife a lot of credit because there was no money to make in the beginning right so my wife was working full-time and she saw the passion I had for it and said well look why don't you give this a shock and so I continued to make videos and over time was able to go to my audience and ask them for financial support if you enjoy what I'm doing could you contribute a little something like putting a tip in a tip jar and thankfully people did and they continued to do until the channel could grow big enough that now Publishers will come to me to hire me to do tutorial videos for their games nowadays most of his work involves receiving games from Publishers carefully reading the rules and writing a script before recording tutorials in a basement Studio while he was initially the sole creator of videos for watch it played the channel has since expanded and welcomed several team members who contribute to its content Smith says he's been enjoying doing the job for more than 12 years and plans to continue as long as possible in Three Rivers Pei M win for Swire

Channel: SaltWire

Views: 22,610

Keywords: saltwire

Id: Ln7I8E217KI

Length: 3min 1sec (181 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024